It is easy to write off the case of the assasination of Charlie Kirk as one of irony. A right wing conservative who advocated against gun control is shot and killed by a gunman: wild. But that seems too simple.
Most of us would agree that violence is never the answer, but after I heard the news of Kirk’s death, my highly-biased and left leaning Instagram feed seemed, well, not that upset about it. Many people were re-sharing Kirk’s words and politics as a reason that he was shot.
I didn’t really feel bad either, to be honest. I’m a woke liberal lefty and this guy was, in my eyes, a total far-right asshole who was perpetuating harm against others through his speech.
While some parade Kirk as a champion of debate and civil discourse, Moira Donegan in a piece for The Guardian mourns the fact that many are painting Kirk in this way after his death.
“Charlie Kirk’s ‘debates’ were aggressive, unequal, trolling affairs, in which he sought to provoke his interlocutors to distress, shouted them down and belittled them, spewed hateful rhetoric about queer and trans people, women, Black people, immigrants and Muslims, and selectively edited the ensuing footage to create maximally viral content in which his fans could witness him humiliating the liberals and leftists they perceived to be their enemies.
This was not ‘debate’; it was not reasoned, good-faith discourse; it was not the kind of fair deliberation that democracy relies on.”
It’s safe to say that Kirk didn’t deserve death for the way he engaged in debate, but this incident made me consider the art of conversation. I know what it feels like to sit down across from a community member, or someone in my family, and listen to redundant arguments about why “critical race theory is thought control,” or why “Trudeau should be jailed,” or that “Mark Carney is a pedophile” because of some fake news they saw on Facebook. It’s infuriating; but what makes us a civil society is our ability to engage in conversation. This is what we need to be talking about in the wake of Kirk’s death — especially because we are not America and we don’t exist in a climate that has gone as publicly far right as they have. This is about the preservation of the value of civil discourse.
I often ask myself: is it worth it to try and talk to someone who thinks certain people or groups shouldn’t be recognized or have rights? The question that follows is: what else can we do? It is part of being a citizen in a collective society. I’m not saying we should try to engage with people like Kirk, instead, we should find spaces to have constructive conversations with those who are equally receptive to them. Learning to engage in discourse is what we should be doing as students. We protect human rights, we strive toward civic equity; and I believe that it is worth it to continue to engage in the conversations that make this an ongoing reality.
Nora Delaney, director of Communications at Harvard Kennedy School, encourages civil discourse in her essay “For the Sake of Argument” precisely because of our widening political divides. At the same time, she acknowledges the fear that allowing discourse in these arenas may give space to those with harmful views.
“Rather than dismiss or ignore those with whom we disagree, we should listen to them, try to understand their perspectives, vigorously advocate our own views—and then look for ways to work across differences that do not require us to abandon our principles but do allow us to move forward.”
It is not responsible to avoid engaging in discourse for fear of heated debates, nor is it responsible to engage in disrespectful behaviour for the sake of debate. As a university, we should embrace and refine our ability to have intelligent conversations with each other and be open to what each person has to say. It is truly an art that takes time and energy to learn, but it is worth it.
Perhaps I am being naive, but I refuse to say that we are beyond this, that our political extremes have made us incapable of engaging in decent ways, or of succumbing to the notion that we need to be aggressive in our politics. Shying away from conflict and difficult conversations helps no one. It only serves to drive our society further into madness, anger, hatred, or worse: silence. It benefits no one to look at what happened in the States and assume that is what will happen here. We can control our own narrative, we can refuse to become a society that reacts violently to those who don’t believe in what we do.
We can speak and we can listen.
Darien Johnsen is a UFV alumni who obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree with double extended minors in Global Development Studies and Sociology in 2020. She started writing for The Cascade in 2018, taking on the role of features editor shortly after. She’s passionate about justice, sustainable development, and education.